Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)
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1199. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of applications received for citizenship in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024; the number of applications received in the same years that are still pending; the efforts being taken to address any backlogs arising from these years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12317/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I can assure the Deputy that the Citizenship Division of my Department is doing everything possible to progress applications as quickly as possible.

Citizenship Division have taken a significant number of steps to speed up the process for applicants. These included introducing an online digital application, online payments, and the introduction of eVetting.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that these changes are dramatically reducing processing times. The median processing time for a decision on an application in 2024 was 8 months, down from 15 months in 2023, and 19 months in 2022.

I expect that going forward, the vast majority of applicants will continue to receive a decision within one year, however, it is important to note that no two naturalisation applications are the same and some take longer than others to process. Given the importance of citizenship, robust and comprehensive checks must take place on each application. Unfortunately, some international checks can take a considerable amount of time and these are largely out of the control of my Department.

In just over two years the Citizenship Division of my Department has gone from processing around 12,000 applications a year to processing over 20,000 applications in 2023, and made more than 31,000 decisions in 2024.

The table below shows the total number of applications received from 2021 to 2024, and the number of applications that remain outstanding that were received in each of these years.

Of the 18,997 applications that remain outstanding for the years 2021 to 2024, approximately 37% (7,000) have received a decision and are at the final stage of the application process.